MORELIFE IN GREATER MANCHESTER

OUR SERVICES IN THEGREATER MANCHESTER AREA

We run FREE adult weight management services for eligible individuals across the City of Manchester, Salford, Bury, Stockport, Tameside and Glossop.

At MoreLife, we’re passionate about supporting individuals and communities to lead healthier lives. We’ve been successfully delivering weight management programmes for over 20 years. Our programmes are:

FLEXIBLE – our programmes are tailored to meet your needs and the needs of the group

ACCESSIBLE – face-to-face groups are held at a variety of local venues, with telephone, text Skype and online support between groups

SOCIABLE – all our programmes are delivered in a supportive, group setting

PSYCHOLOGICALLY INFORMED – we don’t tell you what to do, rather we’ll help you to understand how thoughts, emotions and feelings influence your decisions

EVIDENCE-BASED – our strong links to Leeds Beckett University mean all our programmes are based on the latest, cutting-edge research

OUR 12-WEEK PROGRAMME

MoreLife group programmes run for 12 weeks, with monthly maintenance sessions afterwards to help you stay on track. Each session lasts 1.5 hours and focuses on a new topic each week, such as:

Portion control

Understanding food labelling

Changing habits

Stress management

The role of sleep

Emotional and social eating

Our experienced team is made up of nutritionists, psychologists and sport and exercise specialists, and you’ll have a dedicated weight management practitioner for your whole journey with us.

TO BOOK A PLACE, ASK YOUR GP OR HEALTH PROFESSIONAL TO REFER YOU TO OUR SERVICES OR CONTACT US FOR MORE INFORMATION:

If you think you are eligible for our service and would like to be referred, please contact your GP and ask to be referred to the MoreLife Tier 3 weight management service.

If you don’t meet the eligibility criteria for our specialist service, there are a number of local services who you can talk to for help with eating healthily, losing weight and developing your physical activity. The table below gives details of the services available

FOR HEALTH PROFESSIONALS

If you have a patient who would benefit from our services, please use our referral form – if you are a GP, this should be available within your clinical system. For other professionals, please download the form below.

“Other companies made losing weight seem like a magic formula that I could never understand. MoreLife has been like the Wizard of Oz and lifted back the curtain. It turns out it’s not magic at all – it’s simple with the right support”

Want more information?

Update on MoreLife Greater Manchester services during the Coronavirus outbreak

Following Government advice on COVID-19 we have suspended all face to face delivery of our weight management programmes for the foreseeable future. If you are waiting to begin with our service we ask for your patience at this uncertain time, as we are unable to provide specific information about when face to face interventions may resume.

We will be in contact over the coming weeks to update you, which may include offering you the chance to participate in online sessions, so please keep an eye on your email / text messages for further information.

We’ve put together a short FAQ which we hope will answer your most common questions to the best of our ability, given the information we have at this point. If you have a question that isn’t answered here, please do contact us and we’ll do our best to help.

We’ve also posted some useful links (below) to various websites and information about how to stay well and access support during this difficult time. We’ll be adding to these over the coming weeks so please do come back again.

Update on Bariatric Surgery

As a result of Covid19, Salford Royal Foundation Trust are not performing any elective bariatric surgeries until further notice, except for clients requiring urgent surgery due to e.g. cancer/transplant treatment. This decision has been taken as a direct result of the Covid crisis and the need to release beds / NHS capacity.

SRFT are not able to give timescales for resumption of surgery, but it is likely to be at least 6 months and probably longer before any surgery recommences, at which point there will of course be a significant backlog of cases. MoreLife will continue to refer clients who are appropriate for surgery during this time, following our standard clinical protocols, to ensure that all clients are treated equally when surgery does resume.

SRFT have also cancelled the bariatric information sessions until further notice. However, we are looking to run some MoreLife information sessions about bariatric surgery online which our clients on the bariatric pathway will be able to access. We are also looking to pull together other digital resources on this subject so please check back here for updates in the coming weeks.

Useful information

If you need further information and support about Coronavirus, government advice, benefits, financial support etc. this link takes you to a government webpage with links to all this information:

And this link is to a Greater Manchester Health webpage with more local information on how to look after yourself and your family, including top tips to look after your mental health while staying at home, and links to further support:

Greater Manchester FAQs

All FAQs relevant to our Greater Manchester Service

I was attending a group/individual intervention before face to face delivery was suspended. Will my group/individual intervention continue?

MoreLife’s Adult Weight-management Practitioners have been contacting all of their clients over the past couple of weeks to offer you support in a variety of ways whilst face to face delivery is suspended. It is possible that your Practitioner has been unable to make contact with you – if this is the case we ask for you to contact our Client Services team on 0161 511 0300 or via GM-SAWMS@more-life.co.uk and we will get straight back to you.

When will I see my Adult Weight-management Practitioner again face to face?

Unfortunately, we cannot answer this question at the present time. MoreLife is following the latest advice from Government/Department of Health and Social Care, Public Health England, Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership and service commissioners and will resume face to face delivery in line with this guidance.

Please note: Many clients within MoreLife’s specialist weight management programmes are considered vulnerable as a result of health conditions associated with an elevated BMI, e.g. Type 2 Diabetes. For this reason it may take longer for social distancing measures to be relaxed within our service in relation to other parts of society ‘returning to normal’. As soon as further guidance in relation to this issue is released, we will update our website accordingly.

How will MoreLife monitor my weight until face to face contact can resume?

During this time it will not be possible for MoreLife Practitioners to take your weight. However, we encourage you, if possible, to monitor your weight on the same day and time once a week. Alternatively, you may wish to provide us with a measure of your waist circumference. You may then report this weight/measurement to your Practitioner via text, email, or during your next conversation. Do not worry if this is not possible – we understand. Your practitioner can talk to you in more detail about this, and help you if you’re not sure how to take your own measures.

What support can I access in the meantime?

MoreLife aim to offer all clients who were already engaged on the programme the option of continued support. This will take place either on the telephone, over email, or you may wish to continue to engage with members of your group using the Zoom Video Chat app. We understand that this is not a suitable option for all, and we will also respect your decision if you wish to wait until face to face delivery begins again.

As a MoreLife client you are able to access the ‘Wellbeing Zone’. This is our interactive website that contains a wealth of information relating to healthy eating – including many healthy and nutritious recipes to try, nutritional advice and support with physical activity.

Over the coming weeks you will also be able to access additional digital resources (even if you have not yet been allocated to a group/individual intervention). We will post links to these resources on our website as soon as they become available.

If you were waiting to start a group or intervention, we are working to make groups available online as interactive sessions via Zoom Video Chat. We are starting these from mid-April onwards, and we will make contact with you to invite you to be part of these. Please note – we will do this in order of when your group was due to start, to ensure that it is fair for those clients who were due to start groups sooner, so please bear with us as we work through all clients in this situation.

You are also able to access MoreLife’s ‘Wellbeing Zone’ – if you want to get access to this resource, please email GM-SAWMS@more-life.co.uk or call 0161 511 0300 and once we’ve confirmed that you are registered on our service, we will give you access.

If I continue via online/video/phone contact, do I need to ‘attend’ all of my appointments?

Yes. Your appointments and sessions will be agreed in advance just like our face to face sessions. If you are unable to make an appointment, please let us know as soon as possible as it may affect your place on the programme.

What happens if I miss an appointment/session or I am unable to make it?

To ensure that the support our clients receive is most effective and suitable, our attendance policy remains in place. However, we understand that circumstances vary from person to person and that clients may occasionally be unable to attend their appointments, particularly as a result of Covid19 restrictions. If any of the following happen, it may affect your place on the programme:

If you do not attend on two occasions and do not let us know or

If you miss three sessions in total – even if you let us know or

If you request to change to a new groupor

If we have made attempts to contact you but have not had a response

Please contact your practitioner / coach / our client services team if you have any concerns regarding your place on the programme.

How do I use the Zoom Video Chat app?

We understand that many clients may never have used Zoom.. Zoom is simple to use and gives you control over your own participation in the session. It is available on Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android, and a quick tutorial on the basics of Zoom and how to join a meeting can be found HERE. If you don’t have access to any of these devices, you will also be able to enter the group chat via a traditional phone. If further help is needed, we will be happy to run a ‘test’ session to give you the chance to get everything up and running before the real sessions starts.

How safe is Zoom? Is my personal information at risk?

You may have seen information in the media about Zoom and possible security issues. Some of these are historical problems which have since been fixed;

Zoom no longer shares Data with Facebook – they have removed the option for users to log in using their Facebook accounts

To ensure that sessions cannot be accessed by people outside of your group MoreLife has ensured that all meetings are password protected, and once all participants have entered the meeting the Host will lock the meeting.

Zoom is EU Privacy Shield compliant, and all data is encrypted.

You can also play your part by never sharing any information about the Zoom sessions (meeting number, password etc.) with anybody else.

Recording sessions

You may know that Zoom has the ability to record sessions. To ensure your privacy, we have removed the ability for anyone to record the session to their device. We may ask your permission to record sessions for training and monitoring purposes, as well as to enable us to build our online content; we will not do this without your explicit written consent.

Will the support I receive during the COVID-19 period replace the group/individual intervention that I was receiving, or will I be able to return as usual when the lockdown is over?

For those clients who were attending face to face groups/appointments at the time of the lockdown, the support that you choose to receive during this time – be that over the telephone, email and/or Zoom, will be in addition to your group/individual appointments. Once the current restrictions for face to face delivery have ended, you will be contacted by your Practitioner to arrange to resume your face to face intervention.

For those yet to begin your MoreLife journey – we encourage you to consider alternative approaches to support such as to begin one of our fully online groups. This will mean that the time you will have to wait to begin your support with us is likely to be significantly reduced. If you do wish to wait until face to face support is available, you may be able to access our Wellbeing Zone and digital resources – please contact our Client Services team on 0161 511 0300 for access.

I am waiting to be referred for bariatric surgery – how will this time away impact my referral?

As a direct result of the COVID-19 crisis, and the need to release NHS beds, Salford Royal Foundation Trust (SRFT) are not performing any elective surgeries (including bariatric surgeries) until further notice. This is with the exception of those requiring bariatric surgery prior to other urgent life-saving procedures. SRFT are not able to provide timescales for the resumption of elective surgeries, but it is likely to be at least 6 months and potentially longer, at which point there will be a significant backlog of cases.

For those working towards a bariatric surgery referral, we understand that the delay for surgery may be very upsetting. However, your time away from MoreLife face to face delivery will not mean that you have to wait longer before we will consider making your referral. MoreLife will continue to refer clients who are appropriate for surgery during this time, following our standard clinical protocols, to ensure that all clients are treated equally when surgery does resume. We aim to conduct bariatric reviews by telephone / Zoom to avoid further delay.

SRFT have also cancelled their bariatric information sessions for the foreseeable future. We are therefore hoping to provide MoreLife clients with some additional online bariatric support and information sessions for patients who have been referred but are still awaiting surgery. We will communicate directly to clients about this once this option is in place.